Dea Names Agent Who Shot Drug Suspect

January 23, 1999|By Jim Leusner of The Sentinel Staff

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration withheld the name of an agent who fatally wounded an Orlando drug suspect Jan. 14 so it could protect the agent and his family, the agency's Florida chief said Friday.

After a week of silence by Orlando police and federal agents, DEA special-agent-in-charge Vincent J. Mazzilli identified the agent as Jerald Lucas, who has worked in Orlando since July.

Lucas, 36, worked for seven years as a police officer in Illinois and also served as a firearms and defensive tactics instructor before entering the DEA Academy last year, Mazzilli said. Previously, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

``He came from a solid background and has the training he needed,'' Mazzilli said. ``If an agent perceives his life, fellow agents' or a citizen's life are threatened, he can use force to neutralize that threat.''

Mazzilli said he believed Lucas had performed within the Department of Justice guidelines for the use of force.

He would discuss little about the killing of former Orange County deputy sheriff Robert Pasteur or the related drug probe. But Mazzilli said agents had ``definitive information that Pasteur was a violent guy and that we would have to proceed with caution.''

Lucas was part of a team of agents who confronted Pasteur, 42, and Angelo Krauss, 40, after an informant delivered two kilos of cocaine to them on west Colonial Drive in Orlando. Krauss was arrested without incident.

But Pasteur was shot once after he failed to raise his hands and exit the 1997 Jeep he was driving. Instead, he appeared to reach under his seat, agents said. No gun was found in the vehicle.

Pasteur was sentenced to six months in jail last October for burning cars in an insurance scam. He was released Jan. 1.

DEA routinely avoids the release of agents' names in shootings to protect agents and their families. Various ``security precautions'' had been made for Lucas, Mazilli said.

``We feel whatever threats and security concerns we had early on have been taken care of.''

He would not say whether the agency had relocated Lucas, who is on administrative duty while Orlando police and DEA investigate the shooting. Lucas has performed ``above expectations'' in Orlando and has worked in several undercover cases without incident, Mazzilli said.

Also Friday, the Orlando Police Department released an incident report on the shooting that does not mention the DEA, drugs or what happened. The names of Lucas and others were blacked out.

Police legal advisor Lee O'Brien said names were omitted because the people are witnesses in a pending homicide investigation.

State prosecutors will review the police findings.

The Orlando Sentinel made a public records request for the report earlier this week. Police spokesman Sgt. Orlando Rolon said the report was available earlier but reporters had not asked for it specifically.